Believing
by Bisse
Summary: You can put a label on a feeling and package it as something to be used when you want to believe, but that’s just cheap


I often wonder why we don't suffer from vitamin D deficiency. Honestly, I do. I see myself, I see Neo, I see Kid and I think my god, how pale we are. I almost see a grayish tint to our skin, as though my sight is affected by a black and white filter. We look weary. We are weary.  
  
Bruises, so much easier to see on a white canvas, mar our virgin skin. It's the sign of a soldier on leave in Zion; the callused and beaten sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the smooth olive tint of the natural born. We are the worker bees of the hive that we call The Last City and our skin suffers. It's not vanity that makes me notice this..god.I couldn't give a damn about what I look like. It's just that I crave health, I yearn to feel the burn of the ultra violet.  
  
I can remember the feeling of the sun. I know that it wasn't real, but the real feeling must be similar to what I experienced, right? Just as Neo's kisses feel in the Matrix, the sun felt on my adolescent body; not quite the real thing but close enough.  
  
I would sit at my computer for hours and hours, suffering from carpal tunnel and drinking way too much Tab. It was the summer. I'd pretend that the sounds outside weren't distracting; children laughing as they ran through a sprinkler, summer hits blasting from the open window of a cruiser. So I would emerge from my cavernous existence, blinking fiercely as the first rays beamed down on my stiff body. I didn't go any further than the front lawn, but that was okay for me. I was content just to watch the summer pass.  
  
Soon it became a habit. Whenever I'd clocked in too many hours at the computer, or when I felt the lure of the fresh air too strongly I would sit on my front lawn; a glass of lemonade replacing the mouse and the freshly mowed grass providing a softer rest for my body. The sun would envelope me, blanketing my body like no duvet in Zion ever does. It left me feeling as though all the stresses of my life were evaporating away with my sweat, so calm, so soft. Sometimes I would sit there until dusk, until the feeling of lethargy prompted me to return to my bedroom. Like the peace that invades my body after making love to Neo, I felt at complete ease with myself and everyone else.  
  
But the sun isn't ours to enjoy anymore. Only those who live above the clouds, above the scorched plains of our earth, are free to enjoy its radiance. Who lives above the Machines? Angels? God? Zee believes in it. She has these lucky charms that she wears all the time, big silver things that hang off her body. You can wear one if you want. She offered me one time in Zion, her soft hands holding onto my wrist, her brown skin such a contrast to my deathly pallor. I have so many. I declined the offer with a shake of my head, no thanks.I don't really have a belief.  
  
Afterwards I realized that I had lied to her. I do believe. I believe in Neo, in his ability to save our city and to bring us peace. I don't know, or even care, if my beliefs make me able to qualify myself as religious. Whatever I believe, I don't need a name for it. You can put a label on a feeling and package it as something to be used when you want to believe, but that's just cheap. I see a lot of people like that, people who, after Neo is victorious in the Matrix, suddenly approach us in the streets of Zion, please sir.can I touch your hand? Oh sir, will my daughter be home soon? Such hypocrisy. Gifts adorning our room like trophies of war. If we wanted, we could make love on a new blanket every night. But the gifts are false.material hopes served to us during the good times. Needless to say, we don't get approached when a newly unplugged dies, or when Neo returns to Zion without a new story to tell. Like I said, it's cheap. It's cheap for people to believe only when the times are good.  
  
Will there be many good times ahead of us? I don't know. Will we ever get to show Zionists the sun, something they haven't even seen a virtual copy of? I'd like to think so. But I don't know. So until then, all I can do is fight for what I believe in. The power of one man against many. The fact that my love for him strengthens this man. The knowledge that I have ability to keep going until nothing is left.  
  
I look at myself, look at Neo, look at Kid and think, my god, how pale we are. 


End file.
